CatholicVote.org » Tim Shaughnessyhttp://www.catholicvote.org
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 17:57:01 +0000en-UShourly1The Affordable Care Act we can’t affordhttp://www.catholicvote.org/the-affordable-care-act-we-cant-afford/
http://www.catholicvote.org/the-affordable-care-act-we-cant-afford/#commentsTue, 11 Feb 2014 06:09:57 +0000Tim Shaughnessyhttp://www.catholicvote.org/?p=57617Many Catholics support “universal health care,” presumably wishing that no one be denied lifesaving (or more routine?) treatment because of a lack of money. The centuries-long history of Catholic hospitals is evidence of the Church heeding Christ’s call to care for the sick. When I read about the Good Samaritan picking up an assault victim and treating his wounds, though, I don’t usually think of failed websites, underpaid physicians, long lines, increasing government debt, and unemployment.

Yet, the current U.S. manifestation of “universal health care,” which has nonetheless received support from many prominent Catholics (sure, Sister Carol Keehan, but more orthodox folk as well), is Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Okay, perhaps some who advocate for universal health care mean something other than socialized, government-run medicine, but only someone well-versed in Catholic social thought would presume that the former is a distinct wider category than the latter. For the average person (and average voter) they’re synonymous. Which is why, whenever a criticism is offered of Obamacare, the critic is labeled heartless, in the pocket of Big Pharma, and contrary to eons of Catholic teaching.

So, with the understanding that I’ll be thusly labeled in the comments, let’s address the recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) publication that made headlines last week for its prediction of an Obamacare-caused reduction in the labor force by 2.5 million people (I almost said workers, but the labor force includes entrepreneurs and business owners too, who deserve equal dignity to what the Church advocates for workers. They will likely be affected as well as employees). Rely if you will on the analysis of others about the effects of the ACA, but why not go to the horse’s mouth?

Spending on Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and “subsidies offered through health insurance exchanges and related spending” is expected to “grow rapidly in coming years because of changes mandated by the Affordable Care Act, reaching 6.1 percent of GDP in 2024 (being 5.1% of GDP in 2015, p.16).” The government will spend more on, and will thus need more tax revenue to fund, these programs.

The labor force participation rate (the percentage of the working-age population that is both willing and able to work) is expected to decline partly because of the aging population, but also “reduced incentives to work attributable to the ACA–with most of the impact arising from new subsidies for health insurance purchased through exchanges–will have a larger negative effect on participation.” Footnote 15 reads “By providing subsidies that decline with rising income (and increase with falling income) and by making some people financially better off, the ACA will create an incentive for some people to work less (p. 38).“

“CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor—given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive. Because the largest declines in labor supply will probably occur among lower-wage workers, the reduction in aggregate compensation (wages, salaries, and fringe benefits) and the impact on the overall economy will be proportionally smaller than the reduction in hours worked (p. 117).” So, low-wage workers will work and earn even less.

“The reduction in CBO’s projections of hours worked represents a decline in the number of full-time-equivalent workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024. Although CBO projects that total employment (and compensation) will increase over the coming decade, that increase will be smaller than it would have been in the absence of the ACA. The decline in full-time-equivalent employment stemming from the ACA will consist of some people not being employed at all and other people working fewer hours… The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise rather than as an increase in unemployment (that is, more workers seeking but not finding jobs) or underemployment (such as part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week) (p.117-8).“

“In CBO’s view, the ACA’s effects on labor supply will stem mainly from the following provisions, roughly in order of importance: the subsidies for health insurance purchased through exchanges; the expansion of eligibility for Medicaid; the penalties on employers that decline to offer insurance; and the new taxes imposed on labor income (p. 118).”

Silver lining: that’s 2.5 million more golfers.

More quotes could be had. It’s no surprise to economists that socialized medicine, where buyers do not bear the full cost of treatment, results in distorted incentives. Of course, the current system of employer-provided health insurance has bad incentives of its own, mainly due to 1) health benefits being an untaxed form of compensation, which pushes people to buy insurance through their employer rather than like they do car insurance, and 2) the evolution of health insurance from covering only catastrophic or very costly procedures to covering virtually any procedure, no matter how inexpensive. When “insurance pays for it,” buyers overconsume.

But, those faults of the current system are easy enough to fix. They certainly do not warrant an overhaul creating a system of bureaucracy, top-down management, and manufactured shortages.

I’m curious if Catholics who support “universal health care” (lay or religious) are supportive of the ACA’s incentives which reduce people’s willingness to work. Is it charitable to support a program that encourages dependence on a (shrinking) group of workers? If the contraception mandate ever gets modified to our liking, will that pave the way for Catholic support of Obamacare, even if it pushes millions out of work? Is “universal health care” a goal that should be pursued even if it forces the country to go bankrupt? For as much as I get chastised for not respecting the Church’s high opinion of labor and work (because I consider managers, entrepreneurs, and CEOs to be people too), I find it odd that many Catholics support the latest manifestation of socialized medicine that unsurprisingly reduces the incentive to work.

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/the-affordable-care-act-we-cant-afford/feed/15Charity vs. Developmenthttp://www.catholicvote.org/charity-vs-development/
http://www.catholicvote.org/charity-vs-development/#commentsThu, 30 Jan 2014 12:30:31 +0000Tim Shaughnessyhttp://www.catholicvote.org/?p=57563On virtually every page of the Bible or Catechism is the injunction to care for the poor. There isn’t much, however, on the best way to do that. Theologians likely would chalk up such policy discussions to the realm of prudential judgment. Given that, then, it seems natural to ask what policies or programs have done the best job of lifting the poor out of poverty.

Many well-meaning Christians appear to confuse the concepts of charity and economic development, presuming that enough of the former will lead to the latter. It’s a classic fallacy of composition which omits the importance of institutions such as private property rights, sound money, reasonably low taxation, rule of law, and relatively free markets. We have plenty of examples of poor countries both with and without such institutions who have charted widely different paths, the former to prosperity and the latter to stagnation. Ironically, the countries with good institutions have tended to rely very little on foreign or charitable aid and have still grown impressively, while the countries with bad institutions have been black holes of tons of foreign aid and charitable dollars without much to show for it.

Nina Munk was interviewed on the always-interesting EconTalk podcast about her recent book on Jeffrey Sachs and his Millenium Villages Project. The Project appears to be a classic example of charity-minded aid, where dollars are collected and initially distributed with much fanfare, without much thought as to future sustainability (the discussion of the high-yield corn is very instructive). The podcast is well-worth the hour’s listening for anyone concerned about the best ways to serve the poor (and not just the poor in other parts of the world; the policy implications could just as easily be applied to most cities’ programs in the U.S.). Here’s a snippet from the closing:

I think you raise the question of the real arrogance and potential dangers of intervention by well-intentioned but often ignorant or at least naive outsiders. And one of the things that sometimes made my heart stop was realizing that Jeffrey Sachs, for all of his enthusiasm and sometimes rah-rah-ism, would come powering, motoring into a village in his convoy of UN [United Nations] vehicles with bulletproof windows and air conditioning and give these enormously uplifting speeches and make all kinds of promises and set in motion an enormous machinery, so to speak, that then, when the Project began to fail or parts of it began to fail or the staff was no longer there or they stopped showing up–the devastation left behind was incredibly cruel.

My mantra on these pages (and certainly Pope Francis’) is that Catholics need to care for the poor, and should discover those methods that best do that. The answers aren’t hard; economists have known about them for centuries. But it will take breaking out of the charity-equals-development and the capitalism-is-inherently-evil mindsets, two paradigm shifts that Christians don’t seem to be especially inclined to undertake.

One in ten responding religious (10 percent) report that educational debt delayed their application for entrance to the religious institute…

Most responding religious of the Profession Class of 2013 report that educational debt did not delay their application for entrance. Among those that were delayed by educational debt, however, the average delay was two years.

On average, responding religious had $31,100 in educational debt at the time they first applied for entrance to their religious institute. Men and women were about the same in the amount of educational debt they reported.

None of the brothers reported receiving assistance in paying down their educational debt prior to entering their religious institute. Among women religious, several reported assistance

I was reminded of my inaugural appearance on the CV blog, wherein I hoped to bring some balance to the frequent suggestions that student loan rates need to be low to combat educational debt. I proffered that college costs increase because of financial aid availability, and that an argument can be made for the sinfulness of low interest rates along with the more familiar sinfulness of high interest rates. Thinking that we can reduce the burden of educational debt by lowering student loan rates is akin to thinking we can reduce the burden of credit card debt by lowering credit card interest rates: that “solution” may be a cosmetic fix, but it doesn’t solve the underlying problem.
Most of higher education is burdened by bureaucratic bloat which raises costs, and revenue/tuition that is paid only indirectly by students. Most dollars flowing to schools today come not from today’s students but from today’s taxpayers. We all tend to overspend when we spend tomorrow’s dollars rather than today’s.

If we want to get serious about the educational debt problem, to promote vocations or for some other purpose, let’s push to 1) keep student loan rates from being artificially low, and 2) instill some business sense among college administrators. Perhaps doing so will encourage those future seminarians or religious to appreciate the importance of business sense.

Crazy? Well, a letter to the US Senate on USCCB letterhead suggests that “We must return the human person to the center of economic life; one way Congress can do that is by ensuring workers receive just wages.” We can pause here for a second and ask how exactly members of Congress, isolated politicians living in DC, are able to ensure that a worker living in Dubuque is receiving “a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural, and spiritual level.” I shudder at putting politicians in charge of determining whether my spiritual life is dignified. But, let’s assume that the Bishops want to keep things at the level of abstract principle.

1) The letter includes the line “We write not as economists or labor market experts,” and then proceed to discuss issues of economics and the labor market. I presume people who say this sort of thing would walk into an ER and say “I’m not a doctor, but I think that incision is too high.” There is no evidence in the letter, other than an unsubstantiated “research suggests,” that the Bishops have or even seem interested in consulting economists or labor market experts. While it is clear that Church leaders are well-versed in, and obviously consult experts in, fields like fetology, embryology, and other medical disciplines in discussing bioethical issues like cloning, stem cells, and contraception, the published statements on economic issues almost without fail contain laughable errors or myths that most Econ 101 students could refute. Continuing in what appears to be willful economic ignorance does not help solve the many problems facing workers today.

2) The biggest laughable error is the belief that a law will always do what it says it will do. Social Security will provide retirement benefits to old folks. Obamacare will ensure that everyone can get medical treatment (which the Bishops seem gung-ho to support, if only for the contraception mandate). Raising the minimum wage will ensure that the poor get paid more. Even putting aside the unintended side effects of these laws (e.g., Social Security is an immoral transfer of income from current workers to current retirees and tends to benefit white women at the expense of black men; “universal health care” as socialized medicine with zero prices will create shortages, long queues, and less access to care; a higher minimum wage will artificially raise wages of all workers and thus production costs and product prices), many times such laws do not even succeed at what they are said to do. A higher minimum wage will mean more money for some workers, but certainly not all. The worker whose labor is worth $8 to an employer is happily employed now but will not be if the minimum is raised above $8. Artificially controlling prices never causes unambiguous good to all parties, though there certainly are very visible (but usually small in number) groups who are helped. The key, though, is identifying who is hurt by such legislation; this group is usually larger in number but harder to see. Is it easy to spot the worker who is unemployed because companies don’t offer job openings?

3) Two significant pieces of research that should cause pause for the “raise the minimum wage” bandwagon: Neumark and Wascher concede to some unsettled questions related to minimum wage, but

the oft-stated assertion that recent research fails to support the conclusion that the minimum wage reduces employment of low-skilled workers is clearly incorrect. A sizable majority of the studies surveyed in this monograph give a relatively consistent (although not always statistically signiﬁcant) indication of negative employment eﬀects of minimum wages. In addition, among the papers we view as providing the most credible evidence, almost all point to negative employment eﬀects, both for the United States as well as for many other countries. Two other important conclusions emerge from our review. First, we see very few – if any – studies that provide convincing evidence of
positive employment eﬀects of minimum wages, especially from those studies that focus on the broader groups (rather than a narrow industry) for which the competitive model generally predicts disemployment effects. Second, the studies that focus on the least-skilled groups that are likely most directly affected by minimum wage increases provide relatively overwhelming evidence of stronger disemployment effects for these groups.

Given the unambiguous association between raising the minimum wage and higher unemployment, it is curious why the Bishops continually express support for both low-skilled workers and raising the minimum. A second paper from Even and Macpherson (full disclosure: Macpherson was one of my professors in grad school) demonstrates the disparate impact that raising the minimum wage has on black unemployment:

Drs. Even and Macpherson focus on 16-to-24 year-old males without a high school diploma, a group that previous studies suggest are particularly susceptible to wage mandates. Among white males in this group, the authors find that each 10 percent increase in a federal or state minimum wage decreased employment by 2.5 percent; for Hispanic males, the figure is 1.2 percent. But among black males in this group, each 10 percent increase in the minimum wage decreased employment by 6.5 percent…

But the picture grows even more troubling when the authors focus just on the 21 states fully affected by the federal minimum wage increases in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Approximately 13,200 black young adults in these states lost their job as a direct result of the recession; 18,500 lost their job as a result of the federal wage mandate — nearly 40 percent more than the recession. In other words, the consequences of the minimum wage for this subgroup were more harmful than the consequences of the recession.

So, even though it is supported by most every major Church leader, the minimum wage is associated with higher unemployment among less-skilled and young black workers.

It is one thing to express support for poor workers in general; it is quite another to express support for particular legislation which demonstrably has effects that harm poor workers. Wanting wages to be high is praiseworthy; presuming that wages can be set without any reference to economic or financial/accounting realities is ignorant; demanding that an artificial price floor be raised even higher, to the detriment of thousands of workers and millions of consumers, is shameful when no apparent effort is made to consult experts in the field.

Nay. The “murder is a fundamental human right” side got 319 votes, with a majority 351 voting, not to remove the 319 members from Parliament for gross incompetence in the area of human dignity, but to send the bill back to committee.

Calling abortion a “fundamental human right” suggests that anyone who wants one should be able to get one. We say that freedom of religion is a fundamental human right since everyone should be able to practice whatever faith (or none) they so desire without coercion from an outside party. Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right since everyone should be able to express their opinions, even on divisive matters, without being muffled by an outside party.

I’m just an economist, not a political theorist, but it seems that the historical understanding of a human right implies the exercise of an action that imposes no burden on others. I can worship Jesus Christ, Buddah, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster perfectly fine all by myself (yes, I know, it helps to have others and a church, but you get my point). I can haul a soapbox to a street corner or college quad and pontificate on Francis’ pontificate perfectly fine all by myself. Neither of those activities imposes any burdens on others. It would fall outside the understanding of the free exercise clause or free speech if I had a cop grab a minister to involuntarily pray with me, or if I had the city confiscate property upon which I could set my soapbox.

But abortion is not a solo act. In areas where abortion is not widely available (e.g., because doctors conscientiously object, because the local population abhors the procedure, because chastity is widely practiced), what methods would be necessary to guarantee the exercise of such a “fundamental human right?” The least offensive (if it could be described as such) way would seem to be to encourage more folks to become abortionists to “practice” in these underserved areas. Labor markets have an easy way of encouraging the provision of services to underserved areas: excess demand (more demand than supply) for the service provided by a particular occupation will tend to push up wages for that occupation. Why aren’t potential abortionists attracted by the presumably high wage? Noneconomic reasons, like the social stigma attached to abortion, must account for the dearth.

But, again, how can you overcome the social stigma to guarantee the exercise of this “fundamental human right?” If the least offensive way won’t work, then you have to move toward the more. There is certainly a push to normalize abortion, and perhaps the sheer number of its victims will put it into the “everyone has done it” status of mild acceptability. We all have a gay friend and that is supposed to be the reason why we accept same-sex marriage; pretty soon we will all have a friend who has had an abortion (if we don’t already) and that is to be the reason why we accept it. But the still small voice of God, spoken through our conscience, aided in a huge way by the advancement of ultrasound, can’t reject the knowledge that it is a life at conception. There will always be a social stigma, as there was with slavery, and rightly so.

So, if the possibility of high wages or the failure of a societal paradigm shift won’t make abortion universally available, then how to guarantee the exercise of this “fundamental human right?” The only way it can be done, it seems, is to violate other fundamental rights. If abortionists won’t come willingly, then we’ll have to force them. Either abortionists will have to move (or at least practice) in underserved areas, or other doctors in underserved areas will have to be pressed into serving this “fundamental human right.” This coercion is implied in the continual attempts to water down conscientious objection clauses, and is already seen in the HHS mandate. You will provide abortion or else.

This is never how we talk about human rights. Having the rights to life, liberty, and property do not impose burdens on others. We don’t force doctors at gunpoint or under threat of heavy fines to keep critically ill patients alive.

Among the numerous logical flaws of the pro-abortion movement is the attempt to call abortion a “fundamental human right.”

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/who-pays-for-human-rights/feed/1Abused pets? No! Abused humans? Mehhttp://www.catholicvote.org/abused-pets-no-abused-humans-meh/
http://www.catholicvote.org/abused-pets-no-abused-humans-meh/#commentsWed, 04 Sep 2013 06:17:54 +0000Tim Shaughnessyhttp://www.catholicvote.org/?p=53981The online version of our local fishwrap had a story entitled “Study: People have stronger feelings for abused pets than abused humans.” The study was apparently done by professors at Northeastern University in Boston via the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, but the ASA’s website doesn’t have its conference papers online so I’ll have to presume our newspaper is reporting correctly. Some tidbits:

In some cases, if a person claims to have been battered, nobody panics. But flash images of battered animals on a commercial, and more often than not that will elicit an emotional response…

“Contrary to popular thinking, we are not necessarily more disturbed by animal rather than human suffering,” said Northeastern professor Jack Levin, who co-authored the study. “Our results indicate a much more complex situation with respect to the age and species of victims, with age being the more important component. The fact that adult human crime victims receive less empathy than do child, puppy, and full-grown dog victims suggests that adult dogs are regarded as dependent and vulnerable, not unlike their younger canine counterparts and kids…”

Levin said … many people have become desensitized to violence and … feel as though adult humans can fend for themselves, while puppies and infants are less capable to do so…

“We have a tendency to express compassion and empathy toward those whom we consider to be in a vulnerable class, such as animals, young children, the elderly and the disabled,” [Julie Lewis, who works with PAWS of Northeast Louisiana] said. “We may feel a sense of guilt that the plight of homeless/battered animals is directly related to the actions, or inactions, of humans. We know that there are some people who have a lack of remorse for dumping elderly animals or litters of kittens/puppies in the country or at dumpsters, left to fend for themselves. Most cannot and die a cruel death.

I suppose it suggests that the pro-life message may gain a bit of traction in some quarters by showing the parallels between the horrific deaths of millions of unborn children annually to the abuse of animals. It’s certainly not a difficult task to demonstrate that the unborn exhibit the same tendencies and characteristics that make animals worthy of our concern.

If anyone knows of an online version of the paper, I’d enjoy seeing it. Gannett didn’t seem interested in pursuing the abortion angle, though it appears the paper should have some results for children if not the unborn. Let me know in the comments.

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/abused-pets-no-abused-humans-meh/feed/1910 Ways Living with a Toddler is Supremely Awesomehttp://www.catholicvote.org/10-ways-living-with-a-toddler-is-supremely-awesome/
http://www.catholicvote.org/10-ways-living-with-a-toddler-is-supremely-awesome/#commentsSat, 17 Aug 2013 19:28:53 +0000Tim Shaughnessyhttp://www.catholicvote.org/?p=53695The Huffington Post blog had a post yesterday entitled “10 Ways Living With a Toddler Is Like Being in Prison.” Yes, it was mildly humorous, and yes, some of the sentiments will resonate with parents of children of that age, and yes, there is some comfort in sharing stories and jokes about our kids to reinforce that it ain’t just my kid that is doing some crazy, headache-inducing stuff.

The Catholic blogosphere has been abuzz lately about comedian Jim Gaffigan, who publicly admits to being Catholic and to being unapologetic about having five kids. (For my money, Brian Regan is preferable; clean and clearly loves his wife and kids as does Jim, but is slightly funnier.) The bulk of the kid-related humor of both Jim and Brian is the combination of difficult and just plain weird situations in which a parent finds himself. So, I get it; it’s comforting, fun, and funny to make jokes about how raising kids is hard.

Supremely awesome dudes

I’m sure I’m being too sensitive, but comparing life with a toddler to life in a prison, even in jest, is sadly unsurprising in a culture that shows diminishing respect for and enjoyment in children. From little annoyances like “We can’t go to the movies tonight because we can’t find a sitter” to the horror of abortion, children are increasingly frowned upon as interrupting the aspirations (be it work, entertainment, or even sleep) of the adults who care for them.

To summarize, raising kids is difficult because they are selfish, loud, always right in their own minds, needy, and thankless; parenting these little beings requires heroic effort and selflessness from we adults. It’s hard not to see the parallels between this and the relationship between us and God. Am I less selfish, thankless, and self-righteous than my four-year-old in terms of my relationship with God? Hardly. And yet God, Abba, parents me with none of the exasperation and all of the mercy that I fail to exhibit.

I’m sure God (and my wife?) could come up with “10 Ways Living with Tim Shaughnessy is Worse than Being in Prison,” but He just doesn’t think that way because there isn’t an ounce of pride or selfishness in Him. For God, the great good of union with the best of who we are, of being with us as He made us to be, far exceeds the pain of putting up with our sinfulness. He wants us to repent, just as I want our sons to stop jumping on the couch, but He models for us the mercy and forgiveness that all parents should show to their children. Because the Holy Trinity is the model on which human families are based (even families with rambunctious toddlers), life with children sanctifies us. No one ever said sanctification was easy, but better to compare it to a masseuse rubbing out knotted muscles to their original shape than to a prison cell.

And so, in that spirit, here is my list of 10 Ways Living with a Toddler is Supremely Awesome:

You toughen up the skin on your elbows and knees from playing on the floor with them.

You build up cardiovascular endurance as you run laps around the house being the Tickle Monster to one child while holding the other child on your hip.

You develop incredible sleight-of-hand skills, making the object of a sibling scuffle magically disappear after a brief redirection.

You are introduced to unique names, like the names my son gave to his virtual hamsters (phonetically spelled as “Ajee,” “Ajudah,” and “Athee”), or the middle name he suggested for a possible baby sister: “Shirkee.”

You increase your agility maneuvering through playground equipment at top speed.

You improve your apologetic skills by having to explain just how strong God is, how tall He is, and how fast He could fly if He wanted to but that He doesn’t really need to fly.

You understand the incredible mercy of God and what it means to forgive “seventy times seven times.”

You realize the significance of job, reputation, and bank account mean nothing compared to the joy of being united as a family in heaven.

Your child tells you at Mass that he wants to receive Jesus into his tummy, too.

You hear an unsolicited “I love you, Dada!”

Feel free to add more in the comments section.

Bonus #11. You become bilingual, trilingual, or (however many kids you have)-lingual. The word “water” can be translated as “wa wa wa” or “oho.” “Milk” is “bop” or “mit.” “Helicopter” is “no-doggies.” And “Grandpa” is “Batman.”

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/10-ways-living-with-a-toddler-is-supremely-awesome/feed/7In Order to Form a More Perfect Unionhttp://www.catholicvote.org/in-order-to-form-a-more-perfect-union/
http://www.catholicvote.org/in-order-to-form-a-more-perfect-union/#commentsMon, 05 Aug 2013 05:50:28 +0000Tim Shaughnessyhttp://www.catholicvote.org/?p=53478Catholic social teaching has long recognized the importance of workers having the freedom to organize together in order to push for improved working conditions and wages. The Catechism briefly summarizes:

2430 Economic life brings into play different interests, often opposed to one another. This explains why the conflicts that characterize it arise. Efforts should be made to reduce these conflicts by negotiation that respects the rights and duties of each social partner: those responsible for business enterprises, representatives of wage- earners (for example, trade unions), and public authorities when appropriate…

2435 Recourse to a strike is morally legitimate when it cannot be avoided, or at least when it is necessary to obtain a proportionate benefit. It becomes morally unacceptable when accompanied by violence, or when objectives are included that are not directly linked to working conditions or are contrary to the common good.

Many more citations could be offered from encyclicals over the past century and more that support the existence of labor unions. IMHO, the language in which these discussions are couched tend to reflect the prevailing political/economic/philosophical opinions; e.g., the popularization of socialist thought in the early and mid twentieth century led many to conceive of the employer-employee relationship as one of extreme inbalance which needed regulation by the state to correct. The language of Church documents at this time (if not later?) continue this paradigm of a power struggle; note the use of “conflicts” above.

That “conflicts” exist in markets is obvious in one sense, but at the same time it seems odd to describe them as such. There is a conflict because the preferences of the trading partners are completely at odds: buyers want a low price and sellers a high price. The oddity is that, in the face of such “conflict,” buyer and seller have to put those preferences aside and negotiate with the other human being in the exchange, respecting their dignity as persons. If one side does not do so, the trade doesn’t happen.

Again, the adopted script is that employers have huge amounts of power which an individual employee does not; if she were left to her own devices, the employee would be offered below-subsistence wages in a non-air-conditioned work environment where fingers were lost in industrial equipment and the coffee in the break room is only luke warm. The employer, caring only enough about the employee to squeeze as much labor out of her, has scads of potential employees in the wings and so has no incentive to make life tolerable for its workers. In steps the union, to rally the employees into a unified voice.

You may be convinced of this story, of the heartlessness of capitalism and business (and businesses, which is not the same concept), of the odd conclusion that sellers of labor need broad organizational protection and moral support but sellers of other things do not, and of the vital necessity of unions to correct employer atrocities. You will, though, have to contend with the following data:

Data from http://unionstats.gsu.edu/

Private sector workers are leaving unions at a pretty steady clip over a pretty long stretch of time which represents a pretty diverse national political scene. From 1973-2012, the electorate voted in strong and weak conservatives and strong and weak liberals. There were strong and weak recessions and strong and weak periods of growth. Yet the decline in unionization (save for the first six years or so) is unpredictably predictable. Note also that the decline in private sector unionism precedes Reagan’s firing of the striking air-traffic controllers. For a paradigm that views working conditions and wages as deplorable absent union representation, the flight away from unions needs an explanation.

One might make the case that the drop demonstrates that unions have succeeded; conditions and wages are better and so workers, the beneficiaries of past union efforts, no longer need them. Unions achieved their goals and thus successfully made themselves irrelevant. Similar arguments are made over the reduction in pollution vis-a-vis the EPA, or discrimination in hiring and the EEOC. I’m not convinced that unions, the EPA, or the EEOC per se caused these changes or whether societal and economic forces led to improvements in these areas that would have occurred anyway without these groups. People have disliked lost fingers, dirty air, and being discriminated against before these entities existed.

A judge ordered one of Chicago’s most politically powerful labor unions to suspend picketing against 16 funeral homes last week after receiving reports that striking Teamsters had, among other things, disturbed a child’s funeral. SCI Illinois Services, Inc., one of the nation’s largest funeral home chains, asked a district court to intervene after striking funeral directors and drivers with Teamsters Local 727 allegedly harassed grieving families…

The company testified in its filing that union members blocked grieving family members from leaving its parking lot, used bullhorns to shout obscenities at workers and mourners, and unleashed a German Shepard on a dead woman’s daughter and husband. The funeral home was eventually forced to call the police when picketers allegedly disrupted a child’s funeral with laughter. The officer asked the Teamsters to leave, but protesters returned when he drove away.

To repeat the CCC, a strike “becomes morally unacceptable when accompanied by violence, or when objectives are included that are not directly linked to working conditions or are contrary to the common good.” Hard to argue the situation at Chicago funeral homes didn’t cross this line.

Is it past time that Catholics interested in its social teaching disregard the dehumanizing language that paints employees and unions as saints and employers as demons? Certainly there are countries and societies where labor markets are not as free as ours, and where coercion and terrible working conditions are supported by local politicians and bureaucrats. In such cases, the Church’s support of employee organizations is needed, though equally necessary (and often lacking) are condemnations of the local governments. But the belief that freely-exchanging parties, even exchanging over labor services, is by definition one of oppression that needs state remedy and union intervention, is a remnant of outdated political philosophy. For Catholics to be taken seriously in economic and political debates, it is necessary that such antiquated views be revised. As I’ve said before, the Church is to be commended for having scholars at the leading edge of biotechnology (e.g., stem-cell research); having scholars whose view of modern labor relations is equivalent to that of a sweaty, pittance-paid worker in a noisy, dangerous factory with a fatcat owner does us no favors.

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/in-order-to-form-a-more-perfect-union/feed/2Economic ignorance affecting the Churchhttp://www.catholicvote.org/economic-ignorance-affecting-the-church/
http://www.catholicvote.org/economic-ignorance-affecting-the-church/#commentsFri, 07 Jun 2013 20:51:23 +0000Tim Shaughnessyhttp://www.catholicvote.org/?p=50828Call me a Johnny One Note, but the primary reason I became an economist was to help demonstrate to others the human suffering that results from socialism and the incredible material progress that results from free markets. The better material progress we make, the more time and energy we can devote to leisure pursuits, including prayer, spiritual reading, going to daily Mass, etc.

This message isn’t difficult to sell to some audiences; those who are entrepreneurially-minded, those who have lived in repressive regimes, those who casually observe the history of standards of living, all easily recognize the benefits of free trade. The message is much harder for others, who knowingly or unknowingly remain committed to mercantilism or Marxism. The Church isn’t exempt either; whenever greed is spoken of as a deadly sin, the unspoken suggestion is typically that those guilty are the rich, as if poor folks can’t be greedy. Whenever public policy is debated, Catholics speak in simplistic terms about “helping the poor” and support legislation that is thus phrased but whose actual effects are virtually always the opposite (yes, a higher minimum wage hurts many more poor, inexperienced workers than it helps). Despite the bulk of academic research supporting the benefits of free trade, and despite the economic malaise of “middle-of-the-road” countries who pay lip service to capitalism but are hugely regulated and heavily taxed, many in the Church seem willing to let Caesar engorge itself, thereby requiring us taxpayers to forcibly render increasing shares of the fruits of our labor to him.

Venezuela should be a test case. Full of natural resources, and boasting a good standard of living in the 1960s, its per capita income has stayed flat since. The “progressive” socialism under the late Hugo Chavez seemed to have all the right solutions: when people are poor, of course the solution is to prevent high prices, right?

The government of oil-rich Venezuela has kept in place price and currency controls introduced under the government of President Hugo Chavez, who died in March after a prolonged battle with cancer. Those restrictions have limited the availability of products to consumers. ”They have kept the prices down with controls, and that has kept inflation relatively low, but it can’t last,” said economist Robert Bottome, who runs a consultancy in Caracas. “Things are going to get worse.” Chavez’s successor, Nicolas Maduro, has tried to ease some of the pressures by making the dollar more available to some businesses, thereby allowing them to import more goods, but shortages have persisted.

In his small parish outside of Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, Father Maximo Mateos is filling his chalice with less than half the amount of wine he formerly used. The priests at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish in Caracas are precariously close to running out of sacramental wine. And for the Sisters of the Adoration, finding good wheat flour to make Communion wafers is becoming harder and more expensive. In Venezuela, sporadic shortages of basic goods can turn a roll of toilet paper into a rare commodity; add bread and wine to the list of scarce products.

There is a clear reason why the shortages are occurring. Of course, the government has its own opinion of why:

The Venezuelan government announced in early June that it would start testing a program designed to prevent hoarding. The program will digitally track shoppers in the state of Zulia, which includes the country’s second-largest city, Maracaibo, and will limit the amount of basic goods they can buy in one day.

Yup, hoarding by Venezuelans. The government steps in, presuming to know the “right” price of things and forcibly pushes prices downward. The shortage is guaranteed as an artificially low price encourages consumption and discourages production. The government’s price control is directly to blame, but you can’t expect it to admit fault. So, it does what it does best: intrudes once again on individual liberty by tracking your purchases and telling you when you’ve had enough.

You’ll forgive me for not being surprised at the situation there. Experiments in price controls have happened for thousands of years with exactly the same results. But, and people in the Church deceived into thinking that the state can fix any problem, maybe this time will be different…

You’ll forgive my frustration; it’s bad enough when stupid government policies keep bread out of the hands of the poorest people on earth. Now stupid government policies are preventing poor people from being able to receive the Bread of Life.

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/economic-ignorance-affecting-the-church/feed/19Immigration and the Lawhttp://www.catholicvote.org/immigration-and-the-law/
http://www.catholicvote.org/immigration-and-the-law/#commentsMon, 06 May 2013 11:00:24 +0000Tim Shaughnessyhttp://www.catholicvote.org/?p=48615Forgive me for venturing again into the immigration debate, but it seems (judging by combox discussions) that I haven’t made my point clearly enough in my pasttwo outings. I tried pointing out that

immigration (even unskilled) is not a drag on the overall economy,

if we accept the debatable premise that immigrants are a drag on the welfare system, then we should fix the welfare system instead of building a wall,

belief in the integrity of the law seems less at risk from illegal immigrants than it does from, say, legalized abortion,

immigration has not been shown to be (statistically) significantly related to crime rates,

having a burdensome route to legal immigration will likely encourage the types of illegal immigrants that we don’t want (i.e., risktakers, people with nothing to lose, etc.), and

we should spend more time and effort encouraging the adoption of proper institutions in foreign countries than in blocking emigrants from these foreign countries fleeing corruption.

But, try as I might, people still seem stuck on the “I like legal immigration, but not illegal immigration” idea. Implicit in this argument is the acceptance of current immigration law as valid or just. My point in writing all of these articles is not to provide an apology for people breaking the law to come here and refuse to assimilate. My point was to encourage asking the question “Are our current immigration laws wise or just?”

law books on a shelf by umjanedoan

Here’s yet another hypothetical: we’ve all seen cute little kids selling lemonade; we never think they are shady characters who should be forcibly removed from society. But what if we made selling lemonade illegal? Who would sell it? The law won’t reduce demand but it will push up prices with the added risk, thereby attracting profiteers who a) hold the law in contempt, b) probably aren’t very nice people, and c) are the types of people we would try to forcibly remove from society. Our strict immigration laws probably encourage the (illegal) immigration of more undesirable folks than if the laws were more lenient. Sure, more lenient laws would mean more immigrants, but it would mean more nicer immigrants and more immigrants who respect the law.

What if it were illegal for anyone in the U.S. to move to Texas? Would immigration to Texas cease? No. Would it affect which immigrants ended up in Texas? Undoubtedly. Do you think there would be a greater or smaller amount of nice immigrant families moving to Texas? A greater or smaller amount of dangerous people with nothing left to lose?

I find it odd to juxtapose the “immigrants are okay if they follow the law” logic with the pro-life position. The point that pro-life people (need to) make is that the legality of abortion does not provide it moral cover. We aren’t content that people just reduce their use of legal abortions; we would not consider it just to keep abortion legal even if we got the number of abortions to decrease significantly. We realize that the law of legal abortion itself needs to be changed. Can you imagine a Catholic saying “I’m all for legal abortions; I’m just against illegal abortions”? No, we know that abortion is objectively evil; the law impacts abortion by making it more or less prevalent.

Similarly (but of course not to the same degree), forcibly keeping immigrants out is, I would argue, (a lesser) evil. People should have the freedom to escape poverty and corruption, and morally we should be willing to help people doing just that. Sure, some bad apples will come in, but God creates all of us even knowing we will sin, some gravely and with final impenitence. The law impacts immigration by affecting who chooses to come.

Even though Jesus said “those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do,” the “get tough on immigrants” crowd seems to only want those who are well to enter our borders. If you are not convinced by the lengthy academic literature showing no significant connection between immigration and crime rates (hint: at least read the abstracts!) then you need to provide a moral reason for keeping immigrants out, most of whom won’t break any other law besides the one saying they can’t come here.